Threat Of Noise, Traffic Dooms Cafe

March 2, 1986|By Sara Roen of The Sentinel Staff

CASSELBERRY — Whether it would have been a restaurant or disco, Jack's American Cafe won't open in the Oxford Square mall because noise and traffic from the club would disturb nearby residents, the board of adjustments decided.

The five-member panel voted unanimously Thursday to deny special permission for the proposed club to serve alcohol and food. Before they voted, board members said Jack's would increase traffic on State Road 436 and on residential streets and that residents would be bothered in early morning hours by club customers inside and in the parking lot.

City Planner Barry Campbell originally recommended approval, but only if owners would agree to sell food and alcohol from 7 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. only. Vernon Young, a Houston club owner and financial backer of Jack's, said his proposed business would not survive under those conditions. The club would have stayed open until 2 a.m.

Campbell said the time limits would reduce the impact the club would have on residents in a new apartment complex that is being built behind the new mall on Oxford Road, as well as residents in the Carriage Hill subdivision east of the complex.

Young said the club's doors would be on the west side of the building away from the residents and that noise would not be a problem. He said that if it did become a problem, he would remedy the situation.

He also said traffic would not be a problem because customers would leave via S.R. 436 and that the highway is not busy at 2 a.m. However, board member Andrea Dennison said that instead of using S.R. 436, some customers would use residential streets as shortcuts to get home.

The proposed 13,150-square-foot cafe would have served food from a limited menu, would have had a dance floor and a recreation room with video games, as well as a large television screen. The business, with capacity for 500, also would have had a bar.

About 40 men and women, many from Carriage Hill, attended the meeting and presented the board with a petition with more than 300 signatures in opposition to the club.

Former city councilman Frank A. Schutte, 108 Carriage Hill Drive, said his he and neighbors have been plagued by noise from a lounge across from the subdivision on S.R. 436 and predicted the same would happen if a club were allowed in the mall.

Schutte said that when he voted as a councilman on controversial issues he would ask himself, ''Would I want this next to myself, my family, my home? If the answer was no, I'd vote no.''